Encounters
by Wishes and Words and Etcetera
Summary: Jasper lost his fiancee nearly a year ago, when she vanished from their house together. He then runs into her in a dark alleyway, but she is not human anymore, still alive, but not the same. Jalice, AU, one-shot.


POV: Jasper's.

A/N: Play the emo music with this one :)

Disclaimer: Don't own Jasper, Alice, James or Twilight.

**Encounters**

She was beautiful when we first met, when I spotted her across the dimly lighted café, to notice a pair of soft hazel eyes watching me already, peaking out from under a halo of close cropped ebony hair. I had locked eyes with her until she raised her cup of coffee in the air, as a sort of salutation, and raised one eyebrow. She was beautiful when she stole my heart, just moments after I joined her by the fireplace in the café, speaking her first words, which seemed like the first time I had ever heard truth.

She was beautiful when I proposed merely five months later, as we sat in the hammock we always shared down at the beach near our little home, our relationship progressing faster than any other we'd ever had, enjoying the last few minutes of the sun against our skin. She had a way of looking at me that made my heart stop, through her naturally dark lashes, which she always tinted during the day, but looked just as stunning after all the makeup had been washed away.

She was always beautiful when she was pressed against me, her pale skin contrasting with mine, darkened by the sun. We always slept the same way, her back to my chest, with my arms wrapped around her loosely. She never used a pillow; always resting her head on my arm, promising me that it was more comfortable than it looked.

She was even more beautiful now, made more dangerous and unattainable by the new perfection to her features, and the slight smudge of blood above her lip. She stood in the alley, her face frozen in an expression of horror, not at what she had just done, but at me. Horrified by the fact that I had seen her.

It had been almost a year since she had disappeared, stolen from under my nose. I was talking to her on the phone as I parked out front, heard her scream as I unlocked the front door, and by the time I ran in, she was gone, not a drop of blood or a foreign hair. Whoever had taken her left no trace.

I remembered exactly what she said on the phone that day. There had been a moment of silence, and then I heard her say "Oh god, oh no," in a terrified but quiet voice, as if she had seen what was coming. I asked her if she was all right, and she laughed again, but it was hollow. She then told me she had to go, and after we said goodbye, she whispered to me, "Jasper, you know that even if something happens to me, I want you to know that I truly love you. I will always love you."

I had never gotten the chance to tell her I loved her too.

She stood up, the new Alice, with an inhuman fluidity, and let the dead body fall. I didn't watch it hit the floor, I wanted to remember her the way she had used to be, soft and innocent, not with the sharp edges that seemed prominent now. Her nose had always turned up at the end just a little too much, but now it was as straight as a ruler.

She took a step towards me, and then stopped, her orange-red eyes bright with uncertainty. She moved with complete grace, different from how she had moved before, even through the years of dance class. This grace was more than what a lifetime of ballet could give.

She looked over her shoulder as if she was planning on leaving, and my heart began to speed up. I couldn't lose her again. "Alice," I called, not as loud as I had intended. She winced as if she had heard anyways.

Her lips moved in a blur, but I heard nothing. She saw my blank expression, and tried again.

"Jasper." She said, and I nodded, although it wasn't a question.

Her voice broke the barrier between us, and I took a few steps towards her and she stood her ground. I walked a little closer, and then stopped.

I ran my fingers through my blond hair, which had grown too long in the last year of unbelievable grief. I had three days growth of beard and my clothes were unwashed. In comparison, she looked better than amazing, her hair the same length it had been when she was taken, and her petite body fitter than before.

"What are you?" I choked out. Her smooth face registered no shock.

"What I am is impossible. An abomination." She said with extreme calmness, as if she had practiced pacing her words just right. Her eyes softened, "I'm still the same person though, Jasper." She reached her blood streaked fingers towards me for a split second, before snatching them back to her chest. Her eyes were frozen wide and liquid, but no tears fell. My heart began to ache.

"I still feel the same," She said, her voice cracking with emotion. My mind reeled. I had always felt that she wasn't dead, as if she was still out there somewhere, looking for me. But seeing her in front of me, moving and breathing, made me feel as if I was trying to understand something greater than my mind could handle, as if I was grasping at mist.

My mouth flopped open and closed, like a fish out of water, gulping for reason. "H..How?" I managed to ask.

She winced. "He bit me." She said. Anger flared, and bile rose in my throat.

_He._

Hot tears rose to my eyes, and I blinked them back. "He?"

Her eyes widened again. "His name was James. Oh, Jasper, he was horrible. Always killing, killing just for fun. He stole children, lovers, people from their beds. The more damage he caused, the more he enjoyed the hunt. It was unbearable."

"But you're not with him anymore?" I asked, the world surreal. The red brick walls of the alley were coated with graffiti, green and red snakes everywhere, the symbol of the gang that owned these streets. The heads of the snakes seemed to move, the eyes watching me. I could hear them hissing lightly, wiggling their long tails in anticipation of the kill.

She nodded, but looked around cautiously. "I left him in Santa Monica, but he's tracking me. He's going to find me again, and I don't know what he'll do."

Her eyes met mine again; the love and passion still burning in these newly shaped and newly colored eyes.

"Jasper, I don't know how much time we've got, and I don't want to lead him to you, I never want him to get you. He wont change you like he did to me, he will kill you." Her eyes were wide with fright, her fingers interlacing like they did when she was mine. "I've always been looking for you, as much as I could, just to lead him away."

"What do you mean looking for me?" I asked, confused.

She stopped wringing her hands nervously. "Um, when I became… this, I started to get a sort of special power. I could see into the future, but only a few seconds, and it never made sense. But then after time, it started to work better, and I learned how to use it to look for people's futures, to see what would happen."

I nodded. "Did you see me here? Is that why you came?"

She shook her head slowly. "If I had seen you here, I never would have come. I was looking for James, focused on him completely."

"You wouldn't have come?" I asked, my voice lowering pathetically. It was like a small jab in my already broken heart. It had already begun to knit itself back together, now that I was in her presence, but to hear that she was avoiding me, and what that would insinuate for my future, just ripped all the stitches of hope out.

Then a solution began to dawn on me. "You say he bit you? This is how you… changed? He just had to bite you?" I said slowly.

She realized what I was getting at immediately. "No." She said, backing up a few steps, clutching her hand to her heart as if it was her life I was suggesting taking.

I stepped forward. "Alice, don't you see? If you bit me, then we could be together. I can't live like this Alice," Tears began to trickle down my cheeks, and I angrily wiped them away with the back of my hand. "I can't live knowing you're alive, and I can't be with you."

Her eyes melted, and her bottom lip began to quiver. "It won't work like that." She protested, twisting her fingers together.

I opened my mouth to argue, but she cut me off, as she always did.

"It won't." Her eyes pleaded with me. "You don't know what it's like. You don't know how it feels to kill another human being, to take a life. You don't know the emotions that battle as you drink from a dead man, because it doesn't feel wrong, it feels _good_. I can't have you living like this, living from day to day, knowing that there is no end to this nightmare, no reality to escape to." She broke off with a sob, but no tears came.

"I couldn't do it to you." She said, wrapping her arms around her body as if she might fall apart. I remembered what it was like to have my arms around her soft, warm body. I knew it wouldn't be the same, not anymore.

"Please?" I asked, trying to look into her eyes, but she averted them. "I would give up anything for you. I can give up everything for you. Please. Please change me, I don't care what I have to give up, life with you, like this, cannot be any worse than the year I've gone through."

She looked up at me. "It's been a year?" She asked in a small voice. I nodded, and her eyes filled with pity. "Oh, Jasper," Alice said.

Memories of sitting a home, curled up in our double bed with no one to hold, eating dinners meant for two, rereading all the grocery lists she'd ever made, and always, always blinking back tears, seeing the world through my watery grief flooded my mind.

"I can give it up." I said. It would be easy; to leave behind a life so painful, for one that would be difficult in a different way.

"No, I'm not cursing you like this," She said, closing her eyes.

"Alice, please-" I said, before she cut me off.

"I have to go. I can't stay here anymore, he's coming for me." She looked up at me, and unwrapped one of her slender arms from around her body, placing her hand on my wrist, the cool, hard fingers tightening, "Jasper." Her eyes filled with unshedable tears. "I can't live for eternity without you, but I'd rather not live than make your life a living hell. I want you to know that I love you, and I promise never to see you again. I will watch out for your future, and I want it to be full of life. Promise me to live, Jasper, as I never will get the chance to. I love you."

And then she was gone, my wrist still cold from her touch. The alley was empty.

"Alice," I yelled. I wanted her to come back, materialize beside me promising the only future I could ever handle. But she didn't come back.

"Alice," I yelled again, pitifully this time. My voice was haggard, and I felt as if my lungs would collapse. I was frightened, the sky had darkened past twilight into the deep of the night. There were no stars tonight. All around me was darkness, and it was too late to stay outside, but to go to the hotel I was staying at was impossible.

"Alice," I said quietly, "I love you too. I will always love you too."


End file.
